Last night, while almost all baseball eyes were focused on the draft, Tim Lincecum recorded his 1,000th Major League strikeout. On the surface, this isn’t a hugely impressive accomplishment. Lincecum is the 449th Major Leaguer to accomplish the feat, joining such luminaries as Ralph Terry (the guy who gave up Bill Mazeroski’s homer) and Michael Jackson (the Indians and Mariners closer in the 1990s) and Fritz Peterson (at least he topped Mike Kekich’s 497).
Even among active players, 1,000 strikeouts is fairly mundane; Lincecum’s the 46th active player to do it, just behind Joel Piniero, who barely throws hard enough to break glass. Heck, Oliver Perez has 1,000 strikeouts. Tim Wakefield has twice that many. I’m not trying to downplay the accomplishment of any of these players, but simply point out that lots of guys strike out 1,000 hitters and that that feat in and of itself isn’t necessarily a huge accomplishment.
That said, as MLB.com pointed out shortly after Lincecum reached the mark, Lincecum’s only the eighth player to hit the 1,000 K mark during his first five seasons in the league. He’s got a pretty good shot at being the second to hit 1,100 and at Tom Seaver’s first-five-year record of 1,155.
That doesn’t mean Lincecum’s any sort of lock to finish high on the career strikeout list, though. This is his 27-year old season (his 27th birthday is in eight days, coming in just before the June 30th cutoff) and he’s just the 61st pitcher to get his 1,000th strikeout at or before his 27-year old season. Roger Clemens, third all-time on the strikeout list, had 1,424 Ks by 27. That’ll probably put him about 300 up on Lincecum at the end of the season.
If Lincecum keeps striking out hitters at the pace he has thus far in his career (we’ll say 1,000 strikeouts per 4 1/2 seasons), he’ll hit 2,000 strikeouts at the end of 2015 and 3,000 right around his 35th birthday. He’d currently need 3,372 strikeouts to get past Greg Maddux and into the top 10 of the all-time list, though CC Sabathia is only 30 and closing in on 2,000 strikeouts and Justin Verlander (28, 1,048) and Felix Hernandez (25, 1134) are ahead of Lincecum on the strikeout list as well.
Lincecum’s 1,000 Ks in five years feat is impressive; thus far he’s lead the National League in strikeouts in each of his three full seasons and he’s currently fourth in 2011. Cracking the all-time strikeout list is as much a work of endurance as it is brilliance, though. For Lincecum to end up among the all-time greats in Ks, he’s going to have to keep striking batters out at this rate for almost another decade.
Also last night: The first round of the draft happened, with a trio of college pitchers (Gerrit Cole, Danny Hultzen, and Trevor Bauer, in that order) going first to the Pirates, Mariners, and Diamondbacks. Pre-season favorite for the top slot, Anthony Rendon, slid all the way to the Nationals at six. The Indians lost again and their lead over the Tigers (who beat up on the Rangers) is down to 1 1/2 games. Also, Kansas City won on a walkoff single, Cliff Lee struck out 10 to get the Phils their second win in a row after a four-game losing streak, and Brian Matusz picked up his first win of the season for the Orioles. Last night’s scores here, first round draft rundown here.
Today: The draft continues at noon and will be streamed at MLB.com. There’s also a full slate of action, but no afternoon games today. You can check out all of tonight’s probable starters here.
